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You first decided to seek help from a psychologist. On the eve of a meeting with someone you are going to confide in, you are covered with justified excitement. Let’s try to imagine what awaits you.
You thought for a long time, hesitated – and finally dared to call a psychotherapist and make an appointment for the first meeting. On the phone, his voice and intonation did not cause any discomfort. But a minute later, anxiety seizes you: what will this person turn out to be and how will he behave with you? What to tell him? Where to start a conversation? Your anxiety is understandable, and it is understandable that you want answers to your questions.
Trial visit, not a commitment
The first consultation always has a “test” character, and then you have the right to decide whether to continue psychotherapy. Someone, for example, comes to a meeting with a psychotherapist, experiencing a psychological crisis, and as soon as acute anxiety recedes, he refuses to continue work. Only a clear desire to find contact with oneself, to see one’s life situation from several points of view and find one’s own angle becomes the basis for starting psychotherapy.
In other words, you must be sure that there is no other way to deal with a trauma or a problem. “Although even in this case, one cannot exclude internal resistance, opposition to therapy and the psychotherapist,” says Jungian analyst Tatyana Rebeko. “For example, the client suddenly completely loses everything that he was going to tell, or he suddenly feels a surge of irritation, or he begins to have colic … This may be an unconscious defensive reaction of the psyche to the upcoming revision of internal attitudes, to a meeting with the unknown.”
Environment matters too
And now you are already in the office or room where the first consultation (or first session) will take place. You realize that every detail matters to you: the general atmosphere, the decor, the lighting, the smells, the knick-knacks on the shelves.
“When I decided to work on myself,” says 34-year-old Margarita, “I first made an appointment with a female psychotherapist who had a session not far from my house. She received me in a cramped office, dark and unattractive. On the table was a bottle of nail polish and a used piece of cotton. In a word, the place seemed to me simply disgusting, and the one that was sitting opposite me – not special. Almost immediately, I felt like I was being lied to.”
The success of therapy primarily depends not on the skill of the therapist, but on how ready the client is to seek a way out of his difficulties.
Is it possible in such conditions to open up, to speak frankly about what is most important to you? “Psychotherapy is somewhat similar to a love story,” says Tatiana Rebeko, “if you met the “same” person, you have an irrational confidence that he will understand your mental pain and help you cope with it. But the feeling of disgust can also be important if this experience becomes the subject of psychotherapy. It is reasonable to assume that disgust always precedes new relationships in the client and prevents them from starting.
Does your psychologist take notes?
Each psychoanalyst or psychotherapist has his own rules, his own manner of behavior, formed on the basis of personal experience, common sense and intuition. There are as many approaches to conducting the first session as there are therapeutic techniques and even the therapists themselves. Some specialists take notes, others do without notes.
To what extent does the therapist guide the conversation? “I try not to interfere with the speech of my clients, the manner and sequence of presentation,” explains existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova. “The client starts his story with what he thinks is the most important and tells it in the order he thinks is appropriate.”
Does the therapist always ask questions? “Sometimes patients look for active communication, especially when they are afraid to be alone with their problems and with their unconscious,” explains Tatyana Rebeko. “And in this case, moments of silence are simply necessary.” But there are other situations: “Those who are not confident in themselves, acutely feel their defenselessness and, perhaps, are painfully experiencing some circumstances of their lives, turn to me. And I don’t want to create additional complications for them with tense silence during our sessions.”
Nothing to hurry at all
Some therapists tell patients at the end of the first meeting how the therapy will go. For others, therapy proceeds in the direction and rhythm that the patient himself sets, the sequence of his inner discoveries.
“Often, during the first meetings, I determine for myself the problem with which we will begin to work,” continues Svetlana Krivtsova. “However, I can share my hypothesis with the client only when he is ready for it. There is no point in artificially accelerating the process of therapy. After all, the most important thing for its effectiveness is that the client independently realizes the nature of his problems. The success of therapy primarily depends not on the skill of the therapist, but on how ready the client is to seek a way out of his difficulties.
The task of the therapist is to guide you along the path through which you yourself will find a solution.
Therefore, do not be upset when your therapist does not offer you an “antidote” for all spiritual wounds and does not indicate a way out of life’s impasse after a few first meetings. It is important that in the relationship “psychologist-patient” the initiative comes not only from one of the participants. And remember, the therapist’s job is to guide you along the path that you will find the solution for yourself.
“I was able to confess”
Nina, 39 years old
When we arranged a meeting on the phone, he asked not “What is your name?”, but “How to contact you?” – and I called someone else’s name. Arriving at the first session, I announced that I would call him myself. He agreed to this too. We discussed my relationship with my mother, my husband, and then, at about the fifth meeting, he said: “I want to confess something to you, are you ready to hear my confession?” I was surprised. And he, clearing his throat, continued: “During our conversations, I have a feeling of split. It’s as if there’s something behind your words that I can’t grasp.” There was a pause. We were both silent.
And then something seemed to push me: “Actually, I wanted to tell you about something else! I steal. Perfume, rags. I got caught several times. So far, no one knows about it. But I’m scared to death that one day I’ll end up with the police.” I stared at my therapist in horror, expecting to hear, “You lied to me, go away, there’s nothing I can do for you.” But he said something else: “Thank you for being so frank with me. This is a serious confession, and I see that in order to make it, you needed to gather all your strength. And then I burst into tears – from relief, from shame, from everything at once. Oddly enough, at the end of that meeting, I told him my name and left the phone – now that he found out the worst thing about me, I was no longer scared.